PART 1: WKYC/3 and SportsTime Ohio debuted the first high-definition sports telecast in Cleveland TV history, and it looked good to us. We've provided some in-game screen shots... one at field level, and an example of what it looks like when Casey Blake hits a grand slam home run...
(As usual, click on a picture to enlarge it.)
The day did not go without glitches, though. WKYC was experiencing some technical difficulty in running commercial breaks for part of the game, and was forced to go to a logo screen and back to the game early at least twice. We saw it on both the WKYC-DT HDTV broadcast and the analog broadcast on good old Channel 3 itself. As far as we know, no game action was missed.
Later in the evening, the game was replayed...on Adelphia on STO's digital channels 179 (SD) and 798 (HD), the latter suffering from a slight sound misalignment...you heard something a half-second before you saw it.
PART 2: While we're talking about WKYC, the station pulled out all the stops and perhaps even made some new ones to pull out again with a 90 minute pre-pre-game show called "Cleveland Celebrates". The show - hosted by the station's main anchor team of Tim White and Romona Robinson - covered everything but the number of athletic protectors the team needs per year. (Or maybe we missed that part.)
It also pushed Tribe mascot "Slider" to the limit, with an "investigative report" on him by WKYC's Carl Monday...who has surely done more challenging work. And they even looked into him medically. OK, that was a bit over the top...a medical report on what could injure a costumed mascot. The saving grace here - it was Opening Day, and WKYC isn't going to do an hour and a half of pre-game fluff before its other 19 games...
This kind of "give the team a bear hug and a wet kiss" treatment of a sports team by a TV news department is new here for the Indians, who haven't been on an over-air station with a full-time news operation for ages. (Their last over-air home was WUAB/43, which we believe was paired up with WOIO/19 even then, but the station's changed a lot in four years.) This is the kind of routine Washington DC viewers went through last year, when the market gained a new baseball team in the Nationals.
If this continues with WKYC/3, the relationship between WOIO/19 and the Cleveland Browns may look positively chilly by comparison. But we don't expect WKYC staffers to swipe bottled water out of the Tribe's refrigerators in the summer...
PART 3: We've checked out FSN Ohio and WKNR/850's "Cleveland Rants" simulcast a couple or three times in the past week. An overall first impression? Still a bit uneven at times, but Les Levine's regular presence on something that doesn't resemble a cable access station is welcome.
We're not a huge, over-the-top, "heard-his-every-WHK-show" fan of Levine, but he beats the living daylights out of many people masquerading as sports talk hosts in this market. No, we're not naming any names. And his less experienced co-host, WKNR utility player Neil Bender, is handling his new assignment well...and could develop a good chemistry with Levine...
As you can see, the "Rants" set, presumably at FSN Ohio in Independence, is a bit "busy". We're sure that thing behind Les with the logo is a standard set of window blinds you can buy at any Home Depot, but we get the effect. The artwork on the walls needs to be toned down a bit. But at least it's not fake brick wallpaper...(sorry, Les...)
And we're now convinced the radio-only part of "Rants" is done at the WKNR studios. We started thinking that, because we noticed it takes a good 10 to 15 minutes after the TV side signs off before WKNR's Bender is heard again on 850 AM...with a long run of commercials and promos to fill the gap. That, and the fact that the 'KNR side of "Rants" uses the standard WKNR call-in numbers, where the show uses a different number on FSN Ohio (see above).
We plugged the FSN Ohio address and the WKNR studio address into our mapping program, and sure enough, the drive mostly down I-77 South is supposed to take about 11 minutes at the speed limit. We're surprised that Bender hasn't opened up the radio microphone out of breath, or that he hasn't run into a traffic snarl at some point in the run of the show...
Anyway, the show could evolve into the most promising thing WKNR has implemented on its schedule since they signed up that "Rome" guy for early afternoons. It's certainly brought a lot of attention to the Salem sports talk station, if only for the external advertising FSN Ohio has done for the show.
But please...whoever at FSN Ohio screens the calls for "Rants"...some of the show's callers shouldn't be allowed near a telephone! You know which ones we're talking about...and that's OUR "Rant"...
A SPECIAL PART: Casey Blake may have been the Tribe's star of the day, but another Casey's star shone pretty brightly as well. WTAM's Casey Coleman had the honor of throwing out the first ceremonial pitch...clearly a Big Deal in this town on Opening Day...
And we're happy we caught the veteran sportscaster smiling...as he continues to fight pancreatic cancer, and hopes to return to the WTAM airwaves sometime this summer...
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